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Cloths Cost Money Charles Bukowski
Hofstetter wore knickers with Kneesocks, the only kid in school Who dressed like that, only he didn’t Dress himself, his mother dressed Him and to top it off he wore Large harn-rimmed glasses and he had A very white face, in fact his Whole body was soft and white and fat, And he wore bright checkered sweaters, A different color Sweater each day, and he had the Strangest shoes—large, square, clumsy Orthopedic shoes, black, And it was a long walk from grammar School to where Hofsetter lived, Maybe 12 blocks, and I walked home With him each day after school But he never made it safely home, The gang followed him home each day, Taunting, calling him names, throwing Rocks, spitting on him until they Finally closed in to give him his Daily treat. They were older and there were 5 or 6 of them and they Thrashed him well, chops to the Neck, fists to the face, and down He’d go, again and again, silently, Taking his beating almost as ritual,
Rising to be smashed down again, his bloody nose dripping onto his brightly colored sweater, his face glistening with tears, the late afternoon sun reflected on them, and the knees of his knickers now torn and dirtied, the flesh showing through as he was knocked down again and again until he no longer rose and then they slowly left, the gang of 5 or 6, still shouting vile Threats. It happened day after day After day. I always helped him up then Gathering his books and his notebook From where they had been tossed With the papers torn loose and I helped him walk back home His stockings gragging, his glasses Half on with one lense Gone. As he entered his house Day after day after day I sat on the lawn in front and Listened while his mother Screamed. “YOU’VE RUINED YOUR CLOTHES AGAIN! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT CLOTHES COST MONEY?”
I would leave then. The next day I would see Hosfstetter again at school, again Dressed in knickers, his brightly Colored checked sweaters, his Square, clumsy, black orthopedic Shoes and they would begin on him Early—putting gum in his seat Dropping itching powder down the Back of his neck, zapping him with Spit-wads with their homeMade slingshots while the Teacher was absorbed with the Lesson… The hot Los Angeles Sun came through the windows, The blackboards were formal, dull and uninspiring as Hofstetter sat there waiting for the last bell and walk home, day after day after day, it never changed, it couldn’t and would never change, that horrible march home, that little-known history of inhumanity.
Cicada
Charles Bukowski
writers love to use the word “cicada’ in a poem. it makes them believe that they are there, that they have done it. every time I see this word in a poem, I think, damn it, haven’t the editors caught on yet? that it’s a con? a way to milk the game? and look at me: here I’m using it: “cicada.” well, that means that this poem surely will get published. see? it works.
For Women Who are Hard to Love Warsan Shire
you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highway to a burning house says you are blinding him that he could never leave you forget you want anything but you you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours but you are always too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and you tried to change didn’t you? closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettier less volatile, less awake but even when sleeping you could feel him travelling away from you in his dreams so what did you want to do love split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that and if he wants to leave then let him leave you are terrifying and strange and beautiful something not everyone knows how to love.
Commitment Michelle K.
He told me he was afraid of commitment with thirteen tattoos on his body.
Confessions From My Alcoholic Mother N.A.
1. i liked you because when you spoke you said things like “blue busses remind me of Easter” and “God lives inside the walls of art museums” 2. two days before graduation you picked me up at 4 AM and we drove down to Michigan, I told you about my sister and you told me about winters in Connecticut 3. when i left for college, i wrote you three poems and handed them to you in white envelopes, you gave me sea shells you found when you were thirteen and alone 4. he tastes bitter and i still think about your laughter i wonder if you look for the moon on broken nights because my skin burns when strange boys touch me 5. when i received the invitation to your wedding, i took a shower and boiled myself into patches of pain, then i called and said congratulations 6. she looked beautiful at the wedding and i got drunk off of red wine and told your mother how you used to cry when people called you brave 7. we talked once, you told me you haven’t read my poems yet and asked if i still had your sea shells, i told you i was supposed to be in white 8. i moved to Australia and three years later i received an apology letter from you which i burned and then wouldn’t sleep for weeks 9. i still think about you on nights when my husband is sleeping and my black lungs want cigarettes i promised to stop smoking
10. i saw you in my dreams last night, you were kissing my neck and stroking my thighs and i woke up crying in sweat 11. i went to your funeral last Thursday night, you were always talking about Autumn so i didn’t think you should have died in winter 12. i cut my hair short before visiting your grave because i didn’t want anyone to recognize me, i left your sea shells and cried on the way home
Beach Boys Charles Bukowski
only the young go to the beach now. I have a good body for my age bull neck and chest and powerful legs. but my back is badly scarred from a former malady. I feel some shame for my deformity and I would not go there to the beach only my woman insists and if she has the courage to go there with me then I must have the courage to go there with her. but I wonder where the old and the crippled and the ugly are? shouldn’t the beaches welcome them too? where are the one legged people? the deformed? the armless? I watch the young boys on their surfboards slim bodies gliding. some of them will end up in the madhouse some of them will gain 80 pounds some of them will commit suicide most of them will eventually stop coming to the beach
and there is the sun and there is the sand as the young boys zoom down palisades of water as the eagaer young girls watch them and wait. the young girls are thoughtless and very pleased with themselves. I stretch out turn on my stomach close my eyes and then suddenly they all are gone.
The Color of Low Self-Esteem N.A.
what I never learned from my mother was that just because someone desires you does not mean they value you. desire is the kind of thing that eats you and leaves you starving.
An Entomologist’s Last Love Letter Jared SInger
Dear Samantha, I’m sorry we have to get a divorce. I know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain: it’s not you. It sure as hell isn’t me. It’s just human beings don’t love as well as insects do. I love you… far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our species. I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night. I know you would never DO anything, you never do but… I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night. Did you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same: when two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again. If either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. Now that… is dedication. After Elizabeth and I broke up, we spent three days dividing everything we had bought together - like if I knew what pots were mine - like if I knew which drapes were mine - somehow the pain would go away. This is not true.
After two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut down. While he still has control over his motor functions he flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a gift. She then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubes, spooning every morsel into her mouth. She wastes nothing. Even the exoskeleton goes. She does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed them. Now that‌ is selflessness. I could never do that for you. So I have a new plan: I’m gonna leave you now. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injustices, I hope you do the same. I will jay walk at every opportunity, I will steal things i could easily afford, I will be rude to strangers, I hope you do the same. I hope reincarnation is real, I hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures, I hope we are reborn as flies, so that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.
N.A
He admired my melancholy madness and said it was graceful. But it was neither of those things. I was a hurrine at the centre of a collapsing, burning, buiding; and I wasn’t someone to be atmired at all.
The Loser
Charles Bukowski
and the next I remembered I’m on the table, everybody’s gone: the head of bravery under light, scowling, flailing me down... and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar: “Kid you’re no fighter,” he told me, and I got up and knocked him over a chair; it was like a scene in a movie, and he stayed there on his big rump and said over and over: “Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit you?” and I got up and dressed, the tape still on my hands, and when I got home I tore the tape off my hands and wrote my first poem, and I’ve been fighting ever since
Absolutely Nothing Osoanon Nimuss
once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem and he called it "chops" because that was the name of his dog and that’s what it was all about and his teacher gave him an A and a gold star and his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo and he let them sing on the bus and my little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair and the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of x's and he had to ask his father what the x's meant and his father always tucked him in bed at night and was always there to do it ] once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem and he called it “Autumn” because that was the name of the season and that’s what it was all about and his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint and the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars and left butts on the pews
and sometimes they would burn holes that was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames and the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus and the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot and his father never tucked him in bed at night and his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem and he called it “Innocence: A Question” because that was the question about his girl and that’s what it was all about and his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed it to her that was the year Father Tracy died and he forgot how the end of Apostle’s Creed went and he caught his sister making out on the back porch and his father or mother never kissed or even talked and the girl around the corner wore too much make-up that made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do and at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly
that’s why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem and he called it "absolutely Nothing" because that’s what it was all really about and he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist and he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn’t think he could reach the kitchen
My Perfume Doubles as Mace N.A
A boy sprawled next to me on the bus, elbows out, knee pointing sharp into my thigh. He frowned at me when I uncrossed my legs, unfolded my hands and splayed out like boys are taught to: all big, loose limbs. I made sure to jab him in the side with my pretty little sharp purse. At first he opened his mouth like I expected him to, but instead of speaking up he sat there, quiet, and took it for the whole bus ride. Like a girl. Once, a boy said my anger was cute, and he laughed, and I remember thinking that I should sit there and take it, because it isn’t ladylike to cause a scene and girls aren’t supposed to raise their voices. But then he laughed again and all I saw was my pretty little sharp nails digging into his cheek before drawing back and making a horribly unladylike fist. (my teacher informed me later that there is no ladylike way of making a fist.) When we were both in the principal’s office twenty minutes later him with a bloody mouth and cheek, me with skinned knuckles, I tried to explain in words that I didn’t have yet that I was tired of having my emotions not taken seriously just because I’m a girl. Girls are taught: be small, so boys can be big. Don’t take up any more space than absolutely necessary. Be small and smooth with soft edges and hold in the howling when they touch you and it hurts: the sandpaper scrape of their body hair that we would be shamed for having, the greedy hands that press too hard and too often take without asking permission. Girls are taught: be quiet and unimposing and oh so small when they heckle you with their big voices from the window of a car, because it’s rude to scream curse words back at them, and they’d just laugh anyway. We’re taught to pin on smiles for the boys who jeer at us on the street who see us as convenient bodies instead of people.
Girls are taught: hush, be hairless and small and soft, so we sit there and take it and hold in the howling, pretend to be obedient lapdogs instead of the wolves we are. We pin pretty little sharp smiles on our faces instead of opening our mouths, because if we do we get accused of silly women emotions blowing everything out of proportion with our PMS, we get condescending pet names and not-sodiscreet eyerolls. Once, I got told I punched like a girl. I told him, Good. I hope my pretty little sharp rings leave scars.
There is a Light That Never Goes Out N.A
Take me out tonight where there’s music and there’s people who are young and alive driving in your car I never want to go home becuase I haven’t got one anymore take me out tonight because I was to see peoeple and I want to see lights driving in your car oh please dont sdrop me home because it’s not my home, it’s their home, and I’m welcome no more and if a double-decker bus crashes into us to die by your side such a heavenly way to die and if a ten ton truck kills the both of us to die by your side the pleasure and the privilege is mine.
Body Aches Suck More Than God Elisabeth Workman
to have spent the weekend trying to save your own life sucks, the laundry machines suck. Washing ageless Masonic fashions with Michael York sucks. “Out air is turning brown today and a Phoenician faucet once was I”; this channel sucks. every time I do something irreversible exhibiting predictable symptoms during the burn/ create process my testicles get sucked into my body a little bit. Wallets, gods, and videocassettes of E.T. pour from my custodial exit United States postal Service that’s not what my inbox is for. Labor pains speak to me. Russians speak to me. Outslept, spatulateleaved, extremely red and very irritable you end up with blisters and sometimes
Lord Tennyson on tetter in the Battle of Balaclava eyeing eyeless anteaters sniffing slick bicentennial frosting. love songs, too, they speak with regrowing body parts and suck sick bionic eyes from the alphabet only to get a free desert! World War I turned me loose in 1918. In the same year Ataturk was moved to turn away from his kind of total abandon-the suck of space and time no more than everyone who responded was in itself a sick victory.
The Gift
Charles Bukowski
that this is the gift and I am sill with it; it has sloshed around my bones and brings me awake to stare at walls. musing often leads to madness, o dog with an old rag doll. into and beyond terror. seriousness will not do, seriousness is gone: we must carve from fresh marble. hell, jack, this is wise-time: we must insist on camouflage, they thought us that; wine come down through staring eye, god coghed alive through the indistinct smoke of verse. the yellow mamas are gone the garter high on the leg, the charm of 18 is 80. and the kisses, snakes darting liquid silver have stopped: no man lives the magic long
until one morning it catches you; you light the fire, pour hasty drink as the psyche crawls like a mouse into an empty pantry. if you were El Greco or even a watersnake something could be done. another drink. well, rub your hands and prove you’re alive. walk the floor. seriousness will not do. this is the gift, this is the gift... certainly the charm of dying lies in the fact that very little is lost
Ptolemaic Poodles Elisabeth Workman
The limits of Florida joy toys are the limits of useful exercise brought to false perfection poolside and slowly replaced by poodles, simple in size petulant and high spoken. But Ptolemy explained it was all-important to push an argument to its ultimate displacement then poof-Elizabeth Taylor puddle licking poodle feets. In my opinion this was a case of false memory either planted by the hypnotist or from his own image in a jungle pool his victim named Little Mo-Ped or Pimpy. No puffs of air no giant sky cracks stirred the master’s eye shining in mute sympathy on the dyspeptic poodle crouching beneath Jeeves. Poodle bites Poodle chews Poodle eats
From all the universe commingles perils rush to unlick a scandal that will test the very limits of out mortality: stalactites forming like pompadours, in short, how thinking goes wrong